On MS Edge, I came across the new "test-phase" personalization form on customizable pillows of mine. While I like the new approach and look, there are several issues with it in its current state, and some design (and product) realities may not have been taken into consideration. I've only checked it on a desktop so far, and haven't seen it on other products but pillows yet. Please note that these issues are already affecting regular products in the marketplace and may lead to missed sales.
MAIN ISSUES
- The template text fields miss all their labels, and the customer is editing blindly. This may not be an issue on simple designs, but as soon as you have several options, you're lost. Plus, you make all the designers' efforts to provide informative labels obsolete.
- Template images can only be chosen by clicking on them in the preview. There is no separate choice in the editing/personalization section showing all available image templates, nor are their labels shown, with potential information for the customers (e.g. suggested image size or type etc) provided by the designer. This makes transparent placeholder images impossible to spot and choose, and on complex designs with small, overlapping, and/or clustered imagery, the only-by-clicking/tipping choice will become a gambling game.
Screeenshots actual/regular vs new personalization form (on 1920 ws & desktop). The green rectangle on the actual form shows the field labeling, the red marking on the new ones shows the blind walkthrough without.
OTHER THOUGHTS and potential Issues in need for dedicated approach/solving
- A template field or image can be used multiple times, in multiple/different places (e.g. front + back or on all calendar pages), and in different ways (e.g. flipped or diff. font). This has to be taken into consideration and addressed when setting up the form. As a side note and FYI, this already doesn't work properly in the new image adjustment tool.
- Design and template elements can be placed on so-called background areas wrapping around the whole product as well as separately on the different faces (e.g. envelopes, gift bags, etc).
- Suggestion: To keep the field list neat, you can put labels in dropdown areas or small popups showing at hovering/clicking on an icon.
- Suggestion: Show image template previews (with labels) also on the left side to make them easier to handle, and to make available also invisible or small assets.
- Nice to have: Give us a dedicated Get Started / Information tool where we can put our dedicated design infos (remarks, tips, etc) and that is shown at the beginning of the form hidden in a collapsing segment or a popup.
- Note: Some template borders don't show up well on shaped previews.
- Important: Image adjustments must either be applied on all copies of that template placed on the product, or made to be applied on any duplicate separately. NOTE: This does NOT work correctly on the already existing adjustment tool, in other words, only one element is changed while duplicates aren't.
Please solve the labeling issue or designers (and you) may lose sales. Thanks!
P.S. If you want more info on the adjustment issues, glad to explain it further, if you plan to address the problem.
Edit: another old/new screenshot:
A good example of why proper template fields & imagery handling and labeling matter.
This product could never be properly personalized through the new form.
Important sidenote: The image adjustment tool is buggy, as already mentioned: when you use the same photo on both earrings and you manually adjust the uploaded image via the resp. tool, the duplicate on the second earring won't be affected. This is a technical problem that needs to be addressed.
I tried viewing a product in all of my browsers - signed-in to Z in Firefox, anon in Opera, Edge, Chrome, Brave and Vivaldi. Got the same same 'ol personalization panel as always. Really hoping the lack of labels you saw was a glitch as that would be disaterous. Even ignoring the instructions aspect to them, just simple labels like "Front - Bottom", or "Your Name Here" etc are essential.
So no, it's not a temporary glitch.
😲😥☹️😭
I'm seeing the new Personalize layout today on some products types, nothing of my own yet though.
While I do like the large, clean view much better than the narrow panel that was confusing to scroll if there are a lot of template fields, the lack of labels will as already discussed be disastrous for certain products. Here's two more examples of such for the Zazzle team.
This is an address label.
With no labels, the customer will just see a blank field with no idea what it's for.
With this design, I didn't want to ruin it with distracting template text but I still wanted to make it easy for customers to add text or monogram if desired so included blank template fields.
Again, with no labels the customer would just see two blank fields with no idea why / what they're for.
I agree. I do like the new layout better than the scrolling panel that is a real pain when there are a lot of template fields, but removing the labels in what I assume was an attempt to make it as clean & simple as possible for shoppers was a mistake. I sincerely hope the Zazzle team reconsiders this choice after reviewing all the ways Creators rely on the label to inform customers.
Here's another example for the Team:
Not only are the labels gone, the fields are not in the designated order. It should be
Front Upper Left - Good Luck (text2)
Front, Bottom Right - You've Got This (text3)
Note from the Designer - (text4)
This is just a basic example but for more complicated designs with lots of templates, Creators often put much time & effort into making sure the text template fields appear in a logical, intentional order by purposely structuring the URL parameter fields. Mixing them up in addition to taking away the labels is not just infuriating for the Creator, it's making it less user-friendly for the shopper.
Actually you can go back, but I had to search around to find it. The button's in the top left hand of the screen - I think it should be just to the left of the "next" button.
With all the changes to both the Design Tool layout and the template "page" the customer sees and that we as the designer still see the old template panel .. I'm confused too, couldn't even find the Lock icon this morning.
But I'm now thinking that this isn't a great solution because you can't change it without editing the product itself, so every time Zazzle changes something you're sorta stuck.
Yeah, I've already had that happen with just template labels where I said something like "click the Change button to upload your own image" and now it says Replace I think. I think that since I wouldn't be adding or changing actual template text, fixing those discrepancies might fly under the Replace option, I just haven't bothered trying yet.
Agree with the full-frame image situation.
I think in an effort to simplify for customers they are actually making thing less user-friendly. The new middle panel in the Design Tool that shows the separate design areas is to me a waste of space (we can collapse the all-important Layers panel but not the superfluous design area panel ??) and to be able to edit anything you have to know to then click on the Layers option on the left-most panel.
Agree. I try to label everything clearly for the shopper and make sure they are in logical order. I rarely do anything that incorporates a lot of text fields but I often see designs in the MP that are text heavy but the fields are still text1, text2, etc and not in order so it doesn't flow. It makes my head hurt. For all the many designers who took the trouble to perfect their templates presentation, that shouldn't be undone by an interface change.
